


Selfish

by ShadowstarKanada



Category: Gravitation
Genre: Character Study, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-29
Updated: 2005-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23661733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowstarKanada/pseuds/ShadowstarKanada
Summary: Who can say why Yuki Eiri does what he does?





	Selfish

I'm not a cold, hard, selfish bastard. You want proof? I told Morning Time that I was fucking gay. Fucking-Shuichi-gay. I came out to the whole damned world on television with a smile on my face.

I wasn't going to do that originally. Really. I mean... it was a stupid move. Tohma's going to call eventually, and I wouldn't really care except that I'll have to deal with him and my sister. Shuichi's road to stardom is going to run off a sudden sharp cliff, and I only hope he doesn't follow like a lemming to the bottom. My own career? Shambles. My editor's going to be calling more than Tohma to find out what the hell I thought I was doing. What the hell _was_ I doing?

I don't know.

I am a cold, hard, selfish bastard. I've worked very hard to become one. I smoke, I drink, I ignore people when I don't want to deal with them, I've fucked people to get back at other people, intimidated them for my own gain- I'm selfish and cold and out for number one. Shuichi is my polar opposite: generous to the point of idiocy, bad with words... warm, soft, and a nice person more often than not.

And what did that get him? What did he earn for being such a _good_ person, such a _kind_ , _caring_ soul? The same thing it got me when I was warm and soft and naive. Rape. Blackmail. Because what? He wasn't just a nice guy, he was a nice _faggot._

It all bled like ink through my head when they asked me. _Are you really just friends?_

"...Sure," I said, and I was going to leave it at that. I really was.

But then I-

Blackmail. Why should that blackmail work? Because Shuichi is gay and I am gay and we have to hide it. Why do we have to hide it? Because everyone has to hide it. It's not acceptable. Japan would never understand if celebrities were homo.

And then there was Ryuichi. Ryuichi who'd never bothered to grow up because, at least according to Tohma, there was no one to grow up _to_ , no one to be an adult with.

And speaking of Tohma. Why had he married my sister? Because Tohma was gay and he couldn't let the world find out about the whole thing. At least she understood: her brother struggled with the same... sexual problem. But Japan? Japan wouldn't understand, not even for the members of Nittle Grasper.

And in that instant between selfishness and selflessness, hovering between who I am and who I was, I thought of everyone before me, and everyone after me, and Aizawa of ASK, and Tohma and my sister, and Ryuichi, and Shuichi and his _damned_ wish for me to be honest with him, and everyone else's complete and utter lack of talent with the words that need to be said, and before I knew it...

"...No, we're not friends," I denied it like I was in one of Shuichi's silly dreams from which he couldn't seem to wake. "We're lovers."

And suddenly, it wasn't a dream. It was a book, and I was a character in the throes of the main plot's climax, and I knew what my lines were supposed to be, and how I was supposed to deliver them. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew what would sell. The scene practically wrote itself. Hell, I'd written it often enough.

_The handsome hero smiles. "Love at first sight changed me," he recounts, and then "Time abroad showed me the way," falls out of his mouth like koi falling back into the pond. "I don't want to hide anymore," he says, his smile growing as he finally reveals his true heart to the world and lets the mystery evaporate as though the lies were nothing more than the gentlest mist finally destroyed by the first rays of the sunny light of his lover's truth._

Ah. And I complain that _they_ have no talent for words? Even my _own_ characters can be a bit trite sometimes. Those words, though, they sell every time.

But not quite enough. Morning Time was still there. And so, I continued.

_And then, in a confession to the heroine, "If only I were free, I would love you as you deserve," he says to his beautiful mistress._

Hmph. Epitome of cliche. If I'd written that instead of said it, I'd highlight it all and press delete. As it is, I'll probably be bombarded with quotes from that awful speech to my dying day.

As soon as I could see the door, I grabbed Shuichi and ran in, but the damage was done. My career, his career, all in the toilet about to be flushed with the next televised commentary from whichever jackass thought he could boost his ratings first.

I reconsidered the confession very quickly given _that_ thought, of course. Yelled at Shuichi like it was his fault, when I could have just been quiet and left my lackadaisical _sure_ to stand on it's own.

Why did I do such a foolishly selfless thing?

I've since adjusted my perception of my motives then to fit it to my own selfish whims. I didn't like him calling us friends. I'd wanted to stake my claim the way he'd done that night in the club. Hell, I've even blamed it on the idiotic clothes Tohma made me buy in New York.

The truth is though, it was the most selfless thing I'd done in a long while, and I knew it.

Fuck it though.

One selfless act doesn't turn a man into a saint.

I just hope it doesn't turn me into a fucking martyr.


End file.
